Japanese theatre director and actor (1935–2016)
Yukio Ninagawa (蜷川 幸雄, Ninagawa Yukio, October 15, 1935 – May 12, 2016) was a Japanese theatre director, actor and film director, particularly known for his Japanese language productions of Shakespeare plays and Greek tragedies. He directed eight distinct renditions of Hamlet. Ninagawa was also emeritus of the Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music.
Although most famous abroad for his touring productions of European classics, Ninagawa also directed works based on contemporary writing from Japan, including the Modern Noh plays of Yukio Mishima (which toured to New York's Lincoln Center in early summer 2005) and several other plays by Japanese dramatists, including Shūji Terayama and Kunio Shimizu. His production of Titus Andronicus was performed in England in June 2006, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford and the Theatre Royal in Plymouth. In 2007 his company participated in the Barbican International Theatre Event (BITE) series at the Barbican Arts Centre in London, with their production of Coriolanus.
Biography
In 1955 Ninagawa first joined theatre company "Seihai" (‘young actors’). In 1967 he left the group and set up his own theatre company, "Gendaijin-Gekijo" (‘modern people's theatre’). He made his debut as a director in 1969 with Shinjo afururu keihakusa (‘genuine frivolity’?). After the disbandment of “Gendaijin-Gekijo” in 1971, in the following year he established a new theatre company called "Sakura-sha" ('cherry blossom company'), which once again resulted in disbandment three years later, 1974.
At the same time, the year 1974 has become the turning point for Ninagawa, when the then Toho theatre producer Tadao Nakane invited him to direct larger productions, and as a result he came to work on a Shakespeare play for the very first time - Romeo and Juliet. Since then, he has become one of the most[citation needed] feted directors in the theatre world. In 1998 he vowed to direct all of Shakespeare's works, and in the year 2000 he directed the mammoth Greeks, a performance lasting for a total of ten and a half hours.
Beginning in 1983 when he directed Medea, Ninagawa continued to do overseas tours every year, adding to his high reputation in Europe, the US and Canada. He was invited to present a play each year in London, for three years in a row – Midsummer Night's Dream in 1996, Shintokumaru (name of the male protagonist) in 1997, and Hamlet in 1998. In addition he collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1999 to 2000 and presented King Lear at London and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Ninagawa won many awards in Japan, and he was awarded honorary doctorates in the UK by the University of Edinburgh (1992) and Plymouth University (2009). He is the father of the photographer and film director Mika Ninagawa.
In his theatrical company Ninagawa Studio (Ninagawa Company), he continued to produce experimental productions with young people. In 2006, he founded a new theatrical group for people over 55 years old called "Saitama Gold Theatre" which is based at Saitama Arts Theatre.[note 1]
Ninagawa died of pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo on May 12, 2016, aged 80.[1]
